I am an evil giraffe. Who no longer blogs about politics.

The Republican presidential dynamic — various candidates rise and recede; Mitt Romney remains at about 25 percent support — is peculiar because conservatives correctly believe that it is important to defeat Barack Obama but unimportant that Romney be president. This is not cognitive dissonance.

Much as Mitt Romney would like you to believe otherwise. And note that this is not the nastiest thing that George Will* wrote about Romney; it is, in fact, probably the nicest. Give you an idea: Will’s piece ends by bringing up Michael Dukakis – and this sentence: “Has conservatism come so far, surmounting so many obstacles, to settle, at a moment of economic crisis, for this?”

You know it’s bad when George Will feels the need to italicize.

The central problem that George Will has about Mitt Romney is the same problem that I have about Mitt Romney, and that Vodkapundit’s Stephen Green had about Mitt Romney when he pointed out that the former governor reminded him of the guy who wanted to know just what it’d take to get you to drive that BMW off of the lot today: which is that nobody dares take their eyes off of the man for a second. It’s not that we – we being the Right-wing – can’t force Mitt Romney to govern as a conservative; it’s that we can’t trust him to stay a conservative for any length of time without constant supervision. This is not exactly an optimal situation: I recognize full well that our politicians need to be reminded from time to time that they were voted in for a reason, but it’s not unreasonable to expect that the lesson stick in their heads.

Which is why the continual ceiling of 25% support is not probably going to change any time soon, and while Romney is going to only win the nomination with a plurality if he wins it at all. And if that happens… heh. I wouldn’t miss next years RNCC for the world.

Moe Lane

*I’ve actually met George Will once (at our last RedState Gathering) and got a favorable impression from him. Based on my limited interaction with the man, I’m not actually surprised that he’s not down with Romney: there’s a bit of a populist streak in Will…

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